Luke 6:1-2 (ESV)
[1] On a Sabbath, while he was
going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of
grain, rubbing them in their hands. [2] But some of the Pharisees said, “Why
are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?”
According to Deuteronomy 23:25 it
was lawful for Jesus’ disciples to pick a little grain from a stranger’s field.
That was not in question. The problem arose when they rubbed the heads of grain
in their hands to release the granules of wheat so they could eat them. In the
eyes of the Pharisees that was doing work. Work on the Sabbath was forbidden;
therefore Jesus’ disciples were breaking God’s law.
It is amazing to me how often we
confuse our rules with God’s truth. Arguments have been made that communion
should only be done with fermented wine. Arguments have been made that one
should never drink any form of alcohol. Arguments have been made that music
should never have a significant beat. Arguments have been made from Scripture
showing that a fourth to a third of all musical instruments in the Bible were
percussion. Almost every disagreement in the church is couched in spiritual
terms. “It’s unbiblical for us to _________.” You fill in the blank. Odds are,
you’ve been a part of those conversations. The reality is, we are not actually
talking about clear teachings of Scripture, but about our personal, cultural interpretations.
Yet somehow, we confuse those with the Bible itself.
Jesus said that he is master of
the Sabbath. Man’s interpretations disappear in the mist when they encounter
the Master. In the next paragraph Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath. The scribes
and Pharisees are watching, waiting for him to heal so they can accuse him of
working on the Sabbath. Jesus, master of the Sabbath, asks a simple question in
Luke 6:9. “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life
or to destroy it?” The answer is clear, but the Pharisees were not willing to
accept it. They were “filled with fury and discussed with one another what they
might do to Jesus” (Lk 6:11). They had already made up their minds.
What if, instead of making up our
minds before the argument starts, we actually listen to one another? We might
approach disagreements from the perspective of the Master rather than our
interpretation of his words. We might set aside our preconceived perspectives
and truly test them against what the Word actually says rather than what we
want it to say or think it says. The Master just might have a better
perspective on what his Word means than we do.
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